Congress works to ensure record victory margin for Sonia

Rae Bareli (Uttar Pradesh), March 27 (IANS) Congress chief Sonia Gandhi will file her nomination for the parliamentary polls on April 6, but the groundwork to ensure that she surpasses her four million victory margin has begun with her children Priyanka and Rahul energising party workers and putting systems in place. While Priyanka visited this constituency for two days earlier this week, brother Rahul, who is general secretary of the party and represents nearby Amethi in parliament, had been doing the rounds earlier.

“Early last year, Rahul Gandhi had appointed a party worker for every 50 families in all the villages of Rae Bareli and Amethi. We were given the task of mobilising them to come to the polling booth on the day of voting,” said Pawan Singh Patel, a party worker of Harchandpur block.

Priyanka, he said, stressed the same point during her visit.

“Priyanka instructed us to bring the maximum number of voters to the polling booth and ensure a record-breaking victory.”

“During his frequent visits here, Rahulji always checks the register each worker has maintained (about the families) and makes sure he visits the maximum number of blocks,” added Sanjay Chaudhary of Lalganj block.

While her victory seems certain, party workers are trying to ensure that she gets a record margin of victory this time - the record for the maximum winning margin is held by the Communist Party of India-Marxist’s Anil Basu who won West Bengal’s Arambagh seat in the 2004 elections by a margin of 592,502 votes.

In the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, Sonia Gandhi’s winning margin was 249,765 with a vote share of of 58.75 percent.

Two years later, in the 2006 by-elections, this doubled to a victory margin of 417,858 and the vote share also went up to 80 percent.

The by-elections were held after she quit as MP over the controversy of her holding an office of profit in the National Advisory Council.

“Your main aim should to motivate each and every voter of your block to come to the polling booth. This time, you should work to help Soniaji set a record,” Priyanka urged workers at a meeting here.

“Rae Bareli has over 1.2 million voters mostly comprising rural and semi-urban people. Most of the people have faith in the Congress since the time of Indira Gandhi and Firoz Gandhi,” said Akhilesh Pratap Singh, spokesperson of the Uttar Pradesh unit of the Congress.